What author has most influenced your writing?

[HordHolm]

George MacDonald Fraser, for the sense of structuring a story, and action leading on to more action.

Gabriel Chevallier (if you haven't read the absurdist Clochmerle then I highly recommend it) for the realisation, at age about 16 or 17, that a story could be packed with ridiculous details, and be effectively about very little indeed, and the characters could nonetheless be at each others throats as they surf through life on a wave of misunderstanding. Oh, and it's funny, too.

And Onehitwanda for her prose. I am currently working on stuff that, by its nature, has to be a bit overstuffed. But I'm looking forward to stripping all that back and trying, as she succeeds in doing, to build an image in a sentence (whereas I need a paragraph and still don't capture it) when I start working on stuff that isn't Victorian.

 

[TakeItOrLeaveIt]

I'm not sure my writing style is reminiscent of any single author, but, when I take the time to review, I do see bits and pieces that remind me of various influences.

To (kind of) answer the question, my two most consequential writers are Cormac McCarthy and Will Christopher Baer.

Stumbling upon All the Pretty Horses was an epiphany of sorts - that was the novel which encouraged me to write (closely followed by The Road, and then Blood Meridian). The Phineas Poe trilogy by Baer changed the way I write (for the better, I hope!).

I also attribute the tone of much of my non-Literotica output to the album, Pure Comedy, by Father John Misty. FJM is very much my spirit animal

 

[intim8]

All of them. I've been writing off and on for 50 years. I've read thousands of books in that time (probably have averaged one novel a week all my life). I couldn't single one out any more than you can pin the blame of the deluge on any given raindrop. Roald Dahl and George Lucas were very early influences. Tolkein and King were notable a liittle later. Rand had some influence after a while, along with Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, Banks, and a host of other science fiction writers.

But the most influential at any given moment is the one I read last. It seems that after I finish a book, I find myself writing a little bit like them. I guess that means I still need to find my own voice. Or maybe it doesn't, maybe I just keep piling little bits of those influences on to what I already have.

P.S, I took one of those online writing style tests, and it said I wrote like David Foster Wallace, whom I have never (yet) read. Then I deliberately tried to channel Raymond Chandler, and according to the test, I nailed it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Just a reminder - authors who have influenced your writing here (and how for a bonus), not just favorite authors

Emily

 

[intim8]

authors who have influenced your writing here (and how for a bonus), not just favorite authors

Sorry, Mom.

OK, Piers Anthony. I read one of his stories early in high school, and wow, I learned that writing could work better than pictures.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Sorry, Mom.

That’s better - now go watch TV, mom needs alone time with her buzzing friend

 

[intim8]

mom needs alone time with her buzzing friend

I always wondered why you brush your teeth so often.

 

[lovecraft68]

I wrote for a couple years before I came here, and hadn't read much here before publishing, so there's no one here who influenced me as a writer. I did find a couple of authors who wrote like me in the taboo genre in the sense of there's a story there, and some conflict rather than simple stroke stories, and that gave me some confidence. That was Alwayswantoo and Paco Fear, but seeing I already had that style I'm not sure they were influences as much as the feeling of seeing their success here and wondering if I could achieve it.

To be the man you have to beat the man is how I generally view things even if its not direct competition.

 

[TakeItOrLeaveIt]

my two most consequential writers are Cormac McCarthy and Will Christopher Baer.

Just a reminder - authors who have influenced your writing here (and how for a bonus)

To better answer the exam question.

The stark lyricism of McCarthy really moved me. I've tried to capture that in my writing and so my sentence structure and lexicon is designed, in part, to mirror that musicality. And Baer writes really dark shit with a metaphysical edge. That's informed the kind of stuff I tend to write about. The darker the better

 

[EmilyMiller]

To better answer the examine question.

The stark lyricism of McCarthy really moved me. I've tried to capture that in my writing and so my sentence structure and lexicon is designed, in part, to mirror that musicality. And Baer writes really dark shit with a metaphysical edge. That's informed the kind of stuff I tend to write about. The darker the better

️️️

 

[AsianFusion]

Princess Diana. She didn't write a book either.

 

[AG31]

Stephen King. Even though I don't write horror.

I don't read or write horror or supernatural, but he's written several stories that have neither and I've been happily impressed. He's really good and often slips in insights into the actual practice of writing. That's fun.

 

[AG31]

Probably Stephen King. But just as we learn what to do and what not to do from our parents examples, SK has influenced me similarly.

He feeds us the nuances of his characters over the course of the story. I love that and try to do similarly. On the other hand his characters internal monologues get tiresome. His need to describe minutiae as well though he's gotten better with that.

But it's his relatable characters and natural dialogue that I try the hardest to emulate.

I'm listening to Faerie Tale now.

Edit- I'm gonna add R.A. Salvatore. He does high adventure better that most and I'm drawn to that. I'm just cutting my teeth on my first adventure stories now.

You said it so much better than I did here.
There are 5 people so far in this thread that cite King positively. Let us know if any of you are inspired to count the frequency with which other authors are cited.

 

[KeithD]

The only book I've read by Stephen King is "On Writing." I think I'll survive.

 

[AG31]

The only book I've read by Stephen King is "On Writing." I think I'll survive.

Your reply inspired me to edit my post just above yours.

"Let us know if any of you are inspired to count the frequency with which other authors are cited."

 

[lovecraft68]

The only book I've read by Stephen King is "On Writing." I think I'll survive.

I read some of that, but stopped because having read just about everything he wrote up until around the year 2000, he seems to break every rule he's trying to tell people to follow

 

[SimonDoom]

You said it so much better than I did here.
There are 5 people so far in this thread that cite King positively. Let us know if any of you are inspired to count others.

I've read a lot of King's work, since the 1970s, so it would be hard NOT to be somewhat influenced by him. My chief complaints about King are that some of his novels go on too long, and he often doesn't know how to finish them (I thought this was true of The Stand, 11/22/63, and Under The Dome, among others). But some of his shorter novels are great. My all-time favorite remains Salem's Lot, which I think is perfectly paced and reads like a movie. He has a lot of superb short stories. Night Shift is the best collection of short horror stories I've ever read.

Here's how I would say King has influenced me relating to stories I've written:

Number 1, he has a great imagination, and it's a very twisted imagination. I enjoy twisted, and some of my stories are twisted. I strongly believe authors shouldn't be careful and cautious; they should let their imaginations go to strange, dark places and ignore what anybody thinks about it.

Number 2, he tends to write about fairly ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and I would say that's a theme of my stories as well.

 

[lovecraft68]

I've read a lot of King's work, since the 1970s, so it would be hard NOT to be somewhat influenced by him. My chief complaints about King are that some of his novels go on too long, and he often doesn't know how to finish them (I thought this was true of The Stand, 11/22/63, and Under The Dome, among others). But some of his shorter novels are great. My all-time favorite remains Salem's Lot, which I think is perfectly paced and reads like a movie. He has a lot of superb short stories. Night Shift is the best collection of short horror stories I've ever read.

Here's how I would say King has influenced me relating to stories I've written:

Number 1, he has a great imagination, and it's a very twisted imagination. I enjoy twisted, and some of my stories are twisted. I strongly believe authors shouldn't be careful and cautious; they should let their imaginations go to strange, dark places and ignore what anybody thinks about it.

Number 2, he tends to write about fairly ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and I would say that's a theme of my stories as well.

Salem's Lot was great, but Pet Sematary for me is the best, and most disturbing. The back story of Rachel's sister Zelda turned out to be one of the creepiest parts of the book, and they delivered that in spades in the 1989 movie(not so much in that weird reboot a couple years ago).

The Dark Half is overlooked for some reason but one of my favorites.

 

[SimonDoom]

Just a reminder - authors who have influenced your writing here (and how for a bonus), not just favorite authors

Emily

"Here" is the only place I've done any creative writing for my entire adult life, so all my answers apply here.

But I would give the same answers for my erotic story writing, even though the authors I mentioned are not erotic authors (there's a little sex in 1984, but it's not at all erotic, it's more desperate and sad).

The authors that we read early in our lives and continue to like say a lot about how we see the human condition, and that informs how we write, as well.

What's your view of human nature? Do you believe in the concept of human nature? Some people don't, or they think human nature is malleable. Others think it remains the same, whatever the circumstances.

Some people have more of a tragic view of humankind: that we're doomed, that things are getting worse, that our flaws will always dash our hopes, etc. Some people are constantly surprised or distressed when bad things happen.

I'm not. It never surprises me when people do bad things. Of course, people do bad things. They always have. My view is one of what I'd call "dark optimism." Things are shit, shit is all around us, but they're a little less shitty than they were before, and there's always hope for making things less shitty. The process of dealing with shit, or sometimes rising above it, provides lots of interesting creative material, and you can choose as you like to see things comically or tragically, pessimistically or optimistically. I choose optimism and comedy, but my optimism is heavily laden with a dark, twisted perspective that I think I picked up in part from reading authors like Roald Dahl, and later William Golding (Lord of the Flies), and George Orwell. I believe in human nature. We cannot escape our nature, but we can do our best to work with it.

I think erotica is a perfect medium to express this perspective, because there's so much weird, twisted, dark, psychological material tied up in what turns people on. I like to plunge headlong into that as a writer and reader. I don't ever take the perspective, "We can't go there."

 

[yowser]

What's your view of human nature? Do you believe in the concept of human nature? Some people don't, or they think human nature is malleable. Others think it remains the same, whatever the circumstances.

I believe it was Horace Walpole who said:

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

 

[TakeItOrLeaveIt]

My chief complaints about King are that some of his novels go on too long, and he often doesn't know how to finish them (I thought this was true of The Stand, 11/22/63, and Under The Dome, among others).

I totally agree that he doesn't do succinct and I do think the final act of 11/22/63 and Under the Dome doesn't wholly work. But the final scene of 11/22/63 is, I think, just heartbreaking. I think he writes melancholy bittersweet endings about as well as anyone.

He has a lot of superb short stories.

Joyland kinda straddles the line between short-story and novella, but it is so so good. I think it may be one of the best things that he has written.

 

[nice90sguy]

Robert Sheckley.

 

[djrip]

These are more like, aspirational influences, than anything anyone reading anything I've written would actually notice. But I do think about these authors, and others, for specific qualities I seek to develop in my writing.

JRR Tolkien for world building and somber tone where words have a kind of weight and the past seems to rest heavily on everything.

Robert Jordan, I've read those books like 6 times through. For the close third POV style tending to move from character to character, with different verbal mannerisms in the internal narration of each characters' thoughts, and many characters unreliable about their own motivations and biases.

William Gibson for the sharp edged description lighting briefly on some obscure detail like a fly on the chipped enamel of a metal lighter and then spiraling out around the table, the room, the busy street outside...

Neil Stephenson for the light tone where the narrator may slip in some humorous asides, and for the occasional very brilliant and insightful metaphorical description such as when Shaftoe lies with his ear on the ground in colonial Mexico, feeling the stamp of silver from the Spanish mines being pounded into coinage, and envisioning that as a heartbeat pushing silver out into the world, where it circulates along pulsing routes to reach every corner of the Earth. Also big set piece action sequences such as an engagement between galleys and Barbary pirates causing a ship to go down with an enslaved MC aboard, chained to the oars along with various undesirables, one of whom was discovered to have smuggled a lock pick in his ass previously by the slavers, and the MC gave him back the pick but smashed his personal lock so he'd be forced to pick the main one that would undo the whole chain for everyone, which he did submerged as the boat went under, freeing himself and the rest at the last moment before they all drowned.

 

[Carnevil9]

I always try to achieve some of the sly, droll humor evident in the works of Jack Vance and Keith Laumer (two of my favorites), although I make no claims of being successful.